Between this and the DCeased conclusion (the OG was fine), Taylor's Elseworlds have gotten pretty terrible. What an absolutetly spineless, terrible series. This is probably one of the most generic Elseworld stories in quite some time, Taylor is ripping himself *and* other JL stories (like the animated JL opening) only in medieval cosplay. Which would be so bad if the characters weren't at their most generic, if the villains were more interesting than the msot regurgitated JL baddies, if we hadn't spend 9 issues setting up a conflict just to toss it aside for the most clichéd "we must put aside our differences to fight a common threat" third act plot, if dialogue weren't terrible...

This book doesn't quite know what it wants to be anymore and the use of the DC Universe as its backdrop already feels somewhat stale (and this is jsut the second arc). David's arc feels quite rushed, almost immediately after we've met him and we're given a very barebones motivation for his anger, Joekr comes in and he's revealed to be an established character that hated the Joker. Feels too cheap.

After a very strong first issue, the writing here felt considerably more pedestrian. The story seems to be heading into a somewhat more "normal" and predictable (and much less interesting) direction and the aesthetic elements feel also very forced. What happened? The first issue seemed to be juggling its different elements so well, but in here it's like they don't mesh at all and the gothic elements are here "just because".

This issue fell very short of expectations because it discarded the story that was being built up until this moment. Instead of an interesting clash between Superman, who was supposedly much more powerful and this dangerous from all the time he was in the sun and his son, we see the problem being solved without any kind of difficult and the narration still has the gall to try to pretend something exciting is happening. This wouldn't be a problem if the rest of the series hadn't presented the zombie Superman as a formidable threat waiting to happen. You can't just ignore such an important plot point (that the readership is invested in, IT WAS EVEN THE CLIMAX OF THE FIRST SERIES!) because it destroys the trust in your story and lets me think you're playing with "anything goes" rules. Beyond that, the choices for the zombies aren't very itneresting either. SUre "Zombie Gods" is the thing that sounds cool on paper, but in practice they don't behave much different from other superpowered zombies in this series, with the minus that our characters don't have a personal connection to any of them.